Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the - SportAccord

Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the integrity of sport
C. An action targeting the context of corruption:
the global sports betting market
In some societies, sports betting is a deeply-rooted social and cultural activity. It is a natural reflex for
any sports enthusiast to forecast results (either simply for pleasure or by betting). Sport also generates
identity-related differences that encourage supporters to prolong and boost their excitement by betting
on sport.
The substantial media coverage of sport and the large number of competitions nowadays provide many
additional mechanisms for sports betting. The arrival of online gambling has considerably altered the
balance and structure of the market over the past 15 years by enabling it to become globalised. The
activity originally developed outside all control or regulation and it is only in the past decade that
states have begun to regulate the domain. Many operators carrying out their activity exclusively online
( pure players ), who developed on the fringes of national regulations, have progressively had to adapt
their model to the new restrictions of the regulated markets .
Today, one problem with the approach to the illegal market lies in the ongoing nature of certain gaps
in the law, together with different - even diverging - legal frameworks in different countries. In some
cases, whatever is not explicitly authorised is prohibited, and in others whatever is not explicitly
prohibited is possible. So for example, there are conflicting viewpoints between France - which in the
Act of 2010 requires the acquisition of a national licence - and the United Kingdom - which considers
that an operator licensed in a friendly legislation (notion of a white list) is authorised to develop
their offering in the territory.
In the face of the proliferation of operators in the market and the new possibilities for betting opened
up by the Internet, corruption is being combated by decreasing the appeal of the market for criminals,
and thus through strict control of the way in which profit is derived from it. This reduces the routes to
enrichment and money-laundering, and in parallel, provides increased control of movements and bets
on the market. This type of enterprise requires close collaboration with betting operators, who could
be called cooperative players depending on their propensity to position themselves in regulated
markets. Regulating the offering, detecting suspicious cases on the basis of abnormal betting
movements, and monitoring the illegal market are methods of thwarting attempts at corrupting sport.
States are beginning to integrate these issues but are retaining the specific rationales connected with
their own history and objectives. In all cases, international cooperation is imperative to preserve the
integrity of matches and, despite differing regulatory approaches, to promote the fight against the
illegal market.
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